La donna del lago

Thanks to the novels and poems of Sir Walter Scott, Scotland became the unexpected focus of the 19th-century Romantic imagination. A wild, beautiful landscape where lives were lived on the edge of civilisation, rich with folklore and myth, this fantasy-Scotland was an evocative invitation to opera composers, who soon began to adapt the stories for the stage. One of the earliest, Rossini’s La donna del lago (The Lady of the Lake), premiered in Naples in 1819. Andrea Leone Tottola’s libretto condenses Scott’s original story into a swashbuckling (if somewhat Italian-accented) romance set against dynastic conflict in 16th-century Scotland. King James V roams his kingdom disguised as “Uberto.” He meets and falls for Elena, daughter of rebel Duglas, but she rejects him. Not only is she betrothed to rebel-leader Rodrigo, but she loves Malcolm, another rebel chieftain. Disguises are eventually lifted, truth revealed, and pardons issued. Scotland, with its Celtic traditions and atmospheric landscape, was a gift to Rossini, who leans heavily into the plot’s musical possibilities in a score that arrives in a fanfare of hunting horns and peasant choruses, strutting with “Scotch snap” rhythms, passages for harp and plucked strings nodding to folk-music. Add in supremely virtuosic (and often idiosyncratic) vocal writing, including Elena’s showstopping final aria “Tanti affetti,” the thrilling “No! Più non so frenarmi” for rivals Uberto and Rodrigo, and the filigree details of Uberto’s ardent “O fiamma soave.”